


And After Winter, Spring

by Supreme_Thunder



Category: Free!
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-16 23:33:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2288714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supreme_Thunder/pseuds/Supreme_Thunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because episode 11 fucked me up at a very deep level, I had to get this out of my system. One-shot featuring  Makoto angst and MakoHaru fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And After Winter, Spring

**Author's Note:**

> The song lyrics I've used are from "is" by Kanno Youko featuring POP ETC off the Zankyou no Terror soundtrack. I was listening to it (because I hate myself obviously) and thinking about Makoto and the fic just wrote itself.

It’s the dead of winter. It’s been 3 years in Tokyo, all on his own. Makoto is taking the train home for winter holidays because his parents have insisted that he join them this year. Last year, he spent Christmas in his dorm room, eating ramen, reading his favorite book, his phone turned off, trying not to think about Haru…

And now he’s heading back to where it all started. Or ended, rather. After coming back from Australia, Haru had kept his distance. Sure, they talked to each other, said their proper goodbyes before Haru returned to Australia, and he went to Tokyo, starting their own lives, but nothing was settled between them. Makoto still carries that night deep inside him, like a splinter of glass in his heart, always hurting him, however hard he tried to pull it out. He falls asleep on the train, the gentle rattling a discordant lullaby taking him far away.

_**Someone tell me how I got here** _   
_**From the city to this frontier** _   
_**All the noises joined to make** _   
_**Harmony** _

In his 3 years of university, Makoto has yet to make a proper friend. He’s stayed by himself, closed off, distant. He doesn’t want to be intrusive. He fears he’s unwanted, unnecessary wherever he goes. Interfering and meddlesome, that’s what people think of him. He cannot shake off those labels. So he’s kept his head down, and minded his own business. He’s doing well enough in his classes. Though his future still looms like a morbid fog before him, uncertain, confusing. He doesn’t know what to do with himself. There are so many choices. Return to Iwatobi? Stay in Tokyo? Desk job at an office? Continue his degree? Teach? It’s all so meaningless. It’s not like any of it can complete him, can make him happy again…

_**I was stranded on an island** _   
_**Where I roam without direction** _   
_**Is that the wind lifting me up?** _

He wakes up, bleary-eyed, as the train reaches his destination. With heavy limb, he lifts his bag and walks out. The way home is littered with memories he’s so carefully tucked away. Tears freeze on his cheeks in the frozen wind, the snow blinds him completely. He takes shelter in a small shop at the corner of the street. He’s already bought presents for his family, for Rei and Nagisa, even Sousuke and Rin and Gou. And Haru. He has a small pile of unsent letters and gifts in the back of the closet in his dorm room. He feels so utterly stupid, but he cannot help himself. All he ends up doing is imagining how it would be to see Haru react to the silly little trinkets Makoto’s bought for him, realizes how impossible that is, and cries himself to sleep. Haru is probably spending the winter in Australia. With his mother and father being the way they are, what else does Haru have to come to home to? Rin’s with him for most of the year. No one else really matters, do they? Makoto keeps breaking his heart over and over again with these thoughts.

_**Spirits flying at the speed of light (At the speed of Light)** _   
_**Travelling like a dream one night** _   
_**This hole in my heart is proof of life** _

He knows he has a good life. He knows he has a future full of possibilities. But it’s all pointless if his heart keeps hurting like this, if he wakes up struggling to breathe every morning, flooded by the absence of Haru.

**_Life goes on  
And the people sing their song_ **

He shouldn’t have said the words he said. He should have been selfish. He should have kept Haru there with him. They would have met up at the bottom of the stairs every morning, parting there every night, sure of seeing each other always. But it was too late now. He’d already said the words that cost him the person he loved the most in the world. He did it knowingly. He might as well have taken a knife to his own throat. It would have probably hurt less. Even the thought of it makes him clutch his jacket right above his painfully thudding heart. He pays for a cup of bad coffee and walks out, thinking the same stale thoughts. What he wouldn’t give to have those days back again. But he knows when it came to that night, he’d still say the same words, he’d still let Haru go.

**_Love and hate  
Together they can make harmony_ **

As he walks out of the store, shielding his eyes against the white landscape, unable to see a thing, he slams into someone, spilling coffee everywhere. Frantically apologizing, he looks up to see a pair of painfully familiar blue eyes staring at him, rounded in disbelief.

“H-Haru?”

The shorter boy keeps staring at him wordlessly. Makoto is so lost, so completely clueless. Is he dreaming? Is he still asleep on the train and this is nothing more than a vision? Dazed, he takes off his right glove and reaches out a hand to touch Haru’s pale cheek. It’s cold and hard as marble, but it’s there, he’s real.

_**Plunging back into the darkness** _   
_**It’s not pain it’s just uncertainty** _   
_**I know my heart’s missing her piece** _   
_**But it still beats…** _

Suddenly, Haru’s hand is clutching his, holding it against his cheek so tightly. Haru reaches up towards him, his face so close Makoto can see the snowflake balanced on the tip of his nose. Haru wraps his arms around Makoto, as far as he can reach, and their lips meet. Haru’s mouth is so warm, so comforting. Without a word, they walk back to Haru’s old house, hand in hand. Staring at each other, they undress and fall into bed, moaning, tasting, touching, completely immersed in each other’s bodies. Afterwards, they lay together quietly, Makoto’s arms around Haru, huddled together as if their bodies are one.

“I’m sorry Makoto.”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“I love you. I love you so much. I hoped you would wait for me.”

“I would always wait for you, Haru. Always.”

“I know. And that’s why I’m sorry.”

“Will you stay this time?”

“No.”

“I’ll wait again then.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I’m nothing without you, so I don’t really have a choice.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“But I deserve you, don’t I?”

“Because you love me, Makoto?”

“Because I love you, Haru.”

“Because I will always come back to you, and you will always wait for me?”

“Always.”

“Just one more year, Makoto.”

“Just one more.”

Haru turns around to face Makoto, and kisses him again. The snow falls outside, and darkness descends, black and hopeless. But the little house is warm and lit up. The way home has been painful and the journey has been long, but now it’s over. Makoto falls asleep holding on to Haru, the promise of a bright morning etched in both their smiling faces.


End file.
